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The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) in India enables children to create formal structures such as unions and governance bodies to advocate for their own rights. The organization is committed to the empowerment of children, especially working and other marginalised children and their communities, and to enabling and enhancing their participation in decision making and governance on all matters that concern them. CWC has been actively involved in this cause since 1980.

CWC has shown that the harmful aspects of child work can be eradicated and that working children themselves can play a major role in the process. The foundation of CWC’s work is the development of child protagonism; i.e. the empowerment of working children so that they may be their own first line of defence and participate in an informed manner in all decisions concerning themselves. CWC works with local governments, communities and working children themselves to implement viable, comprehensive, sustainable and appropriate solutions in partnership with all the major actors so that children do not have to work.

CWC originally began its work in the city of Bangalore in 1975 with working children, most of who had migrated to the city from the rural areas of Karnataka. Currently the organisation works in five districts of Karnataka.

CWC’s efforts to empower working children and develop their protagonism led to the formation of Bhima Sangha – a union of, by, and for working children.  Bhima Sangha has a membership of 13,000 working children in Karnataka and is an important partner of CWC in implementing the Makkala Toofan Project.  Since its inception in 1990, Bhima Sangha has been a powerful advocate for the rights of working children.  It is equally concerned about improving the quality of life of the parents and communities of working children.  

At the national and regional level, Bhima Sangha has links with other working children and is assisting them to form their own unions.  Bhima Sangha was instrumental in forming the National Movement of Working Children (NMWC), India, and a founding member of the International Movement of Working Children and is presently its Asian Regional Coordinator.

The children also demanded a children’s government that was later called the ‘Makkala Panchayat’. They designed its structure, decided on their leadership style and its purpose. CWC, along with the children integrated these into a strategy. The children wanted the Makkala Panchayat to have a formal status with the local government and we then devised a link mechanism to formally integrate the Makkala Panchayat with the Gram Panchayat, that is the Task Force. This link also enables all these parallel structures to be mainstreamed and the whole model to be upscaled to a State or National level. The election to the Makkala Panchayat is held by the formal government administration and the secretary of the adult Panchayat acts as the secretary of the children’s Panchayat. A Task Force that is chaired by the District Minister’ links the adult and children’s Panchayats.   

Through their organised participation in local governance the children obtain an identity that children of this age group desperately require according to the stages of their development. They make the State accountable through their participation in political structures. This participation in political space by children also enables other marginalised groups such as women, ethnic groups, etc. to change their immediate situation and strengthen and redefine democracy.

Thousands of children are now participating in the governance of their villages. Adults who were traditionally feudal, patriarchal and gender insensitive have become the advocates for Children’s Rights. They see a value in the active and equal participation of children as they have seen this translated into overall benefit for the whole community.

The children’s organizations have been powerful in addressing issues of schools and pre-schools, water and fuel problem, road, footbridges, housing, pension for aged, widows and disabled, getting cards for subsidized food, child migration for work, exploitative child labour, alcoholism, substance abuse, violence, child marriage, etc at the local level as well have contributed substantially to the policies on children at the state, national and international level.

CWC equips children with various skills such as research, documentation, communication, negotiation and advocacy. They use theatre, puppetry, songs, publications, wall magazines, audio and video tools to advocate their stand and principles. The children spell out their priorities, substantiate their claims and advocate for change. In order to maintain good relations with the local government, the children avoid political or other affiliations; however they actively involved in political debates and holding the elected representatives accountable.

The outcome of CWC’s strategy is not only that the Panchayats are becoming child labour free and child friendly, but also policies and programmes are being developed with the best interest of the child, in partnership with children.

This tactic demonstrates a new way of thinking and provides an appropriate strategy of empowering children and young people, to be protagonists and to form partnerships with adults in order to improve the quality of their lives.